In a typical ink jet recording or printing system, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle at high speed towards a recording element or medium to produce an image on the medium. The ink droplets, or recording liquid, generally comprise a recording agent, such as a dye or pigment, and a large amount of solvent. The solvent, or carrier liquid, typically is made up of water, an organic material such as a monohydric alcohol, a polyhydric alcohol or mixtures thereof.
An ink jet recording element typically comprises a support having on at least one surface thereof a base layer for absorbing fluid and an ink-receiving or image-forming layer, and includes those intended for reflection viewing, which have an opaque support, and those intended for viewing by transmitted light, which have a transparent support.
It is often desirable to bond an ink jet image via the front surface, i.e., the ink-receiving surface, onto another substrate to form a final bonded composite. Such imaged and bonded composites find utility in a variety of image display applications. For example, an inkjet image could be printed on a transparent support and mounted onto a rigid opaque substrate to provide a rigid composite for direct viewing through the transparent support. An ink jet image could also be printed onto a light-diffusing opaque polyester support with a transparent polyester film laminated to its surface to provide a composite for a backlit display.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,425 discloses an ink jet imaging element wherein an ink jet image is deposited onto an adhesive receptor layer which is coated onto a protective layer and a temporary carrier layer. After imaging, the temporary carrier layer is peeled away. However, there is a problem with this element, however, in that it requires a temporary carrier layer and the adhesive receptor layer is not porous so that it has a longer dry time.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,313 discloses a recording element comprising a support having thereon an ink transporting layer and an ink retaining layer. The ink transporting layer may contain non-dyeable particles in a binder which is required to be non-dyeable. However, there is a problem with this element in that the dye image has to go through an ink transporting layer until it reaches the ink retaining layer, thus causing the image to spread which reduces image quality.
It is an object of this invention to provide an ink jet recording element which can be laminated to another support for image display applications and which has superior adhesion. It is another object of this invention to provide an ink jet recording element for image display applications which when printed with an ink jet image will have a fast dry time.